


to build a (gingerbread) home

by AnnaofAza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baking, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: “This is going to be better than anything Lance’ll come up with,” Keith mutters under his breath, reaching for one of the piping bags.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 34





	to build a (gingerbread) home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitnkadoodle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkadoodle/gifts).



> To [Kit](https://twitter.com/Kit_N_Kadoodle): thank you again for the lovely holiday art! <3 I hope you like this!

“Ready?”

“Always,” Shiro says, sleeves are rolled up, hands washed, and festooned with a double-knotted apron. 

Keith raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? What’s the first rule of decorating?”

“Don’t bake the royal icing,” Shiro obediently says. He’d learned his lesson after his gingerbread men came out like they’d been through the trials of Hell. Keith had taken a picture and sent it to the Paladins’ chat, with the caption: _I’m meltingggggggggg!_ (They’d still been delicious.)

This gingerbread is a recipe perfect for building and for eating: lots of dark, sticky molasses and an alchemy of spices. They’d printed templates from online, and all they had to do was cut them out and bake. The pieces lie in waiting on the counter, on the kitchen table, on the coffee table, and even stacked on trays on one chair.

Kosmo is almost taller than all of those surfaces—and of course, can teleport—but he’s so far been a good boy, gnawing on a rawhide Keith picked up from the pet store.

“This is going to be better than anything Lance’ll come up with,” Keith mutters under his breath, reaching for one of the piping bags. His hair’s been tied back in a messy bun, falling over the nape of his neck, but icing is already clinging to a few strands.

Shiro hides a smile. They won’t admit it, but Keith and Lance’s rivalry has persisted into small things, like holiday decorations and how many pies they can put away.

And since Keith heard Lance bragging about how he’s whipping up a dessert that will be the “absolute best centerpiece” of the Paladin holiday party, Keith decided to take that challenge. ("May the best decorator — me — win," Lance retorted.) Hunk had graciously allowed Shiro and Keith to use his kitchen while he was helping his own family with preparations—and Shiro can already tell they’ll have a massive clean-up after everything.

He now looks at the board, frosting sprinkled with sugar so it would glisten like real snow, a trick from some handy craft videos. Shiro scrapes a bit up with his fingers, rolling it into a ball that immediately sticks to his hands, Keith opening the oven door to check on the latest batch of cookies that will be dusted generously with powdered sugar.

Looking around the counter, Shiro scoops up a bag full of mini marshmallows they keep around for hot chocolate, then more frosting, and begins to assemble snowmen.

He’s never really played in snow; he first lived on a coast where people could wear shorts in winter, then to the sweltering desert for the Garrison. In space, it had been far from fun—he’d been concentrating on his hunger and the wound on his leg and his head full of memories that did not make sense. They should rent a cabin somewhere, Shiro thinks, and Kosmo’s fur would be thick enough so he could come along. They’d learn to ski or snowboard, or simply skid on a sled all day, be carefree in a way neither of them have been.

Beside him, Keith’s carefully putting together the delicious frame with unshaking hands. He had been the one to sprinkle crushed candies to melt in the oven for stained-glass windows, to squeeze and hold the piping bag in place to create icicles, to come back with the store armed with confections and extra cookie sheets; Shiro wonders if someone had taught him when he was a kid, during a happier holiday than years past.

Shiro hasn’t done this before. He pictures his old house, with family photos and faded rugs in every room, with antiques he wasn’t allowed to touch, then his old dorm back at the Garrison, walls blank except for a calendar. Then to the apartment with Adam, all stainless steel appliances and takeout food, and then, and then…

Shiro shakes the memory of his cell away as the oven beeps, and he bends over to pull out the cookies. Keith’s humming underneath his breath, a tune Shiro recognizes from the radio.

More breaths, more piping. The castleship bedroom, with its softly glowing lights. The Garrison single, with just a bed and a nightstand. Atlas, with white walls and thrumming devices. And Keith’s shack, jacket thrown over on the battered sofa, a crackling radio, a thumb-tacked map.

Shiro sprinkles more sugar, straightens a wall, popping candies in his mouth and bumping fingers with Keith more than once, and imagines a home.

He and Keith are split among Earth and another planet and the Atlas, sometimes for months. Shiro managed to step away from the politics of the Garrison to serve in a diplomatic capacity, and Keith still led the Blades on either relief or war criminal-hunting missions, crashing at the shack or the Garrison or a spare ship.

It’s about time they have a place of their own.

As Shiro adjusts a slowly-sloping wall, Keith nodding in approval, he thinks of windows that could withstand the vacuum of space so they can look out and point to new constellations. He keeps constructing: A chimney, cobbled out of leftover gingerbread bits, where they can light a fire and toast their toes during cold nights. A proper bed that can hold them both, and Kosmo—a marriage bed—crafted out of flattened marshmallows and clumsy pretzel sticks. Tiny hard candies and gumdrops carved with the tip of a knife for flowers, for vegetables and fruits, if they could convince anything to grow. Candy canes to support a porch to sit outside for warm days. Thin licorice whips and a cookie for a swing—because, why not?

And chocolate sprinkles for a walkway, where they could speed up their steps and smile because they were home at last.

Lastly, Shiro sticks two gingerbread men in front of the house with the help of heaped icing. Even with their lopsided gumdrop eyes, Shiro smiles fondly, looking over at Keith, who’s critically inspecting the house from every angle. Kosmo finally abandons his rawhide and wanders over to nose the floor, hoping for dropped goodies.

“What do you think?” Keith asks, hand perched thoughtfully on his chin. 

Shiro leans in and kisses him, tasting stolen sugar and peppermint. “I think it’s perfect.”


End file.
